If President Barack Obama and the U.S. government consider the perpetrator of the Boston bombings a terrorist, then why not the shooter who killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School?

“Based on the evidence at this point, is there any difference between Sandy Hook and Boston other than the choice of weapon?” Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) asked Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano during a congressional hearing Wednesday.

Napolitano didn’t have a simple response.

“In terms of intent for death and destruction and injury, no,” she said, “Methodology, yes. And we don’t know the motivation behind, certainly, Boston — we don’t know whether it was domestic, it’s international ...”

“Or if it was identical to the motivation in Sandy Hook,” McCaskill suggested.

“It’s impossible for me to sit at the table today and say they are identical except in effect and impact,” Napolitano said.

On the same day the Senate was expected to vote on several gun-control provisions, McCaskill pressed Napolitano to reevaluate when and how the federal government defines a criminal act as terrorism — especially when, in the case of the Boston incident, no suspects or motives are known.

“We are so quick to call Boston terror,” McCaskill said. “Why aren’t we calling the man with the high-capacity assault weapon and the high-capacity magazine, why aren’t we calling him a terrorist?”

“I don’t know the answer to that question,” the secretary replied.

“It just is troubling to me,” said McCaskill, a former county prosecutor. “I think both of them, maybe they had identical motives. Just one chose a military-style weapon with a high-capacity magazine, and the other one chose to make a homemade bomb.”

A day after Monday’s twin Boston bombings that killed three people and injured 176, Obama told reporters the FBI is investigating the attack as “an act of terror.” Napolitano repeated that line in testimony before the Senate Homeland Security Committee on Wednesday morning.

Later Wednesday afternoon, an amendment by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) — requiring background checks for firearms purchases — was expected to fall short of the 60 votes needed to pass.

The Senate will take up eight other amendments as well, including a ban on assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity magazines like those used by Adam Lanza in the Sandy Hook shooting in Newtown, Conn., in December.

What is a "terrorist activity?"
Under the Patriot Act, terrorist activities include:

• threatening, conspiring or attempting to hijack airplanes, boats, buses or other vehicles.

• threatening, conspiring or attempting to commit acts of violence on any "protected" persons, such as government officials

• any crime committed with "the use of any weapon or dangerous device," when the intent of the crime is determined to be the endangerment of public safety or substantial property damage rather than for "mere personal monetary gain"

If the person is an American and committed their atrocities in America they should be afforded all rights that other criminals have.

We will have to agree to disagree. When someone opens fire on a group of innocent people they forfeit those rights if it were up to me. If this country wants to prevent gun crimes the need to get serious about how they handle people who use them in crimes. A good start is if someone uses a gun in a crime they get an automatic severe sentence no matter what~

__________________The Trump campaign and Black Lives Matter movement are perfect for each other. Both sides filled with easily led and angry nitwits convinced they are victims~

We will have to agree to disagree. When someone opens fire on a group of innocent people they forfeit those rights if it were up to me. If this country wants to prevent gun crimes the need to get serious about how they handle people who use them in crimes. A good start is if someone uses a gun in a crime they get an automatic severe sentence no matter what~

I agree with you on the punishment for gun crimes but we can't even get Congress to pass tougher laws for illegal gun traffickers.

We will have to agree to disagree. When someone opens fire on a group of innocent people they forfeit those rights if it were up to me. If this country wants to prevent gun crimes the need to get serious about how they handle people who use them in crimes. A good start is if someone uses a gun in a crime they get an automatic severe sentence no matter what~

Which has always been my argument. If you want to cut down on gun crime eliminate the idiots that do it. Of course our definitions of 'severe sentence' may differ.

I agree with you on the punishment for gun crimes but we can't even get Congress to pass tougher laws for illegal gun traffickers.

If they get serious about enforcing laws already in place and give max penalties for gun related crimes much of this cures it's self. You tack a dime or more on to every gun crime and watch the numbers drop. Release nonviolent criminals and start nailing violent criminals. I would support a mandatory hard 40 for gun crimes all kidding aside~

__________________The Trump campaign and Black Lives Matter movement are perfect for each other. Both sides filled with easily led and angry nitwits convinced they are victims~

For someone that likes to trumpet the Constitution about your guns you sure have no problem trashing the Constitution to not protect your fellow Americans civil liberties\rights.

It is not like innocent people have never been convicted and put to death.

I don't think the people who wrote it ever envisioned our judicial system devolving into the sick, corrupt ****ing joke it is now. We are so concerned with the rights of killers that we have forgotten about the rights of their victims.

If they get serious about enforcing laws already in place and give max penalties for gun related crimes much of this cures it's self. You tack a dime or more on to every gun crime and watch the numbers drop. Release nonviolent criminals and start nailing violent criminals. I would support a mandatory hard 40 for gun crimes all kidding aside~

Totally agree but that is too much common sense for Congress on both sides

Quote:

Originally Posted by Douchemaster General

I don't think the people who wrote it ever envisioned our judicial system devolving into the sick, corrupt ****ing joke it is now. We are so concerned with the rights of killers that we have forgotten about the rights of their victims.

I don't think they envisioned alot of things like the type of guns we have now, abortions, the strangle hold on civil liberties etc..

Totally agree but that is too much common sense for Congress on both sides

I don't think they envisioned alot of things like the type of guns we have now, abortions, the strangle hold on civil liberties etc..

I don't think they could have envisioned lots of these things, either.

But this wasn't a cruise missile. It wasn't laser guided. It wasn't a beam shot down from an orbiting satellite. It was merely a simple explosive device. I'm sure some asshole could have put some nails and buckshot in a metal container, filled it with powder and lit a fuse to it back in the late 1700s.

And I can't imagine that if somebody had blown up a bomb in that spot in Boston back then, that our founding fathers or anybody else would be terribly worried about the rights of the ****ing perpetrators.

Claire McCaskill shouldn't even be there. If it wasn't for that dipshit saying that raped women can choose not to get pregnant she would be at home watching instead of in DC mis-representing the state of Missouri

If you made committing a crime with a gun a capital offense, what do you think the ratio of innocent people not killed in violent acts versus innocent people convicted and put to death would be?

I have no idea, probably pretty big ratio.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Douchemaster General

I don't think they could have envisioned lots of these things, either.

But this wasn't a cruise missile. It wasn't laser guided. It wasn't a beam shot down from an orbiting satellite. It was merely a simple explosive device. I'm sure some asshole could have put some nails and buckshot in a metal container, filled it with powder and lit a fuse to it back in the late 1700s.

And I can't imagine that if somebody had blown up a bomb in that spot in Boston back then, that our founding fathers or anybody else would be terribly worried about the rights of the ****ing perpetrators.

Ok but if people built bombs back then and they didn't put that in the Constitution to not protect them then what is the problem you have? Obviously they felt protecting people's rights was very important.